As promised in the April update, we are now able to give details of Ian Edward's funeral which will take place at 10.30am on Friday 27th April at Ebdon Road Crematorium. Our heartfelt condolences go out to Jennie and family.

It is with sadness that we have learned of the death of George Knox, aged 92, Life Member of this Society. With his wife, Millie, George contributed greatly to the Society. They were in charge of our Stand at numerous Family History Fairs and were well known to other societies. Millie, who died in 2015, was our Secretary and George edited the Journal as well as overseeing the transcription of the 1891 census when it was released and he produced our first publications of transcriptions in booklet format. We miss them both and our sympathy goes to their family.

His Funeral service will be at Weston-super-Mare Crematorium on Monday February 26th at 11.00am. Family flowers only by request but donations in memory of George to Diabetes UK may be sent c/o L Bennett & Son Funeral Directors 9 Queens Rd Clevedon BS21 7TH. Tel 01275 875882.

Radio Bristol published this interview yesterday and you may find it interesting. Also this article appeared in Buckets & Spades and if you search our site with "WW2" (using the search box at the top of the home page) you will find other items including the memorial in the Cemetery to the Civilians who are buried there.

I have had the following email from Anton de Man in Holland. Can anyone help please?

"On September 18th 1944 an RAF plane was shot down at Strijen-Sas in The Netherlands. The pilot died. His name was Flying Officer Robert Hawksley HANNEY aged 19yrs. His grave is in the cemetery in Strijen. His parents were Charles Percival HANNEY & Dora Grace HANNEY who lived in Weston super Mare.

We are making a digital monument with tiles and on the tiles a QR code. Under the QR code you can add the life story of F/O Hanney, but we would like to know his story before he entered the RAF. We would like to find relatives or family of F/O HANNEY so we can make it a true life story."

The following relates to an item that appeared in the Lost Cousins newsletter:

I hope you found my latest newsletter both interesting and useful (I'm already working on the next one).

As promised I'm writing to all those who have indicated on their My Details page that they've taken a DNA test to let you know about the latest offers - after all, once you've been bitten by the DNA bug, you'll almost certainly want your siblings and cousins to test!

At the present time only Ancestry DNA have announced offers. In my newsletter you'll find links to their offers for the US, Canada, and Australia/New Zealand:

Those offers all end on Sunday 19th March. The discount for researchers in Australia is an amazing 30%, but the normal price is higher (so don't feel aggrieved if you live in the US or Canada).

From Friday 17th March I'll be able to offer members in the UK a discount of 10 pounds on Ancestry DNA tests, and this offer will run until Sunday 26th March. You might receive an email direct from Ancestry publicising the same offer before Friday - just bear in mind that if you take up the offer in the email LostCousins will NOT benefit.

Note: this isn't the only offer in the pipeline so I'm going to be sending out another newsletter on Friday - this will have links to all of the Ancestry DNA offers and lots more besides, so keep an eye on your inbox!

Even at the discounted price Ancestry DNA tests are a bit more expensive than Family Tree DNA once shipping is taken into account, but because Ancestry have by far the largest user base it's probably worth paying a little extra. I think they would also claim that their matching is also more accurate, since they use a 'phasing algorithm', and they could be right, though I have no hard evidence.

By the way, I tested with FTDNA, my brother with Ancestry. We both got lots of matches.

I recommend that you upload a family tree to Ancestry if you test with them, but it should ideally be a private tree (like mine). They imply that you won't get tree matches if your tree is private, but I did! Of course, you'll get DNA matches whether or not you upload a tree.

Whichever company you test with you can download the raw results then upload them to GEDmatch and Family Tree DNA to make even more matches. It's a lot easier than it sounds.

Remember that it's the earliest generations that should test, so if either of your parents is still around (or one of their full siblings), they should be the ones to test. The same reasoning applies to your cousins, of course.

We have been told that David's funeral will take place on Tuesday, 21st June at 11 o'clock at South Bristol Crematorium. The family have asked that any donations in his memory should be made to The Royal British Legion, Nailsea Branch, with which David was also very involved.

It is with great sadness that we have to report the death of David Milner, our treasurer. He has been an enthusiastic member for many years and has kept our finances in order for several of them. Not only did he share his interest in his own family history with us but also his encyclopaedic knowledge of the Battle of Waterloo. He leaves us with many happy and grateful memories of his involvement with the society and we extend our sympathy to Maureen and his family.

Anne was born in Wales during 1923 the family then moved to London where she was educated after which she joined the Air Ministry during WW2. In 1951 Anne joined the Control Commission in Germany returning to London and transfering the Secretariat Entebbe Uganda where she met and married Alan in 1952.

In 1954 they immigrated to Canada, during which time for some 10 years Anne was with the BC Public Service.